Happy Birthday to me, 26 Years

For being the shortest month, February is always one of our busy ones. It's part of our three month line up of "holidays" - my birthday, Valentine's Day, our Anniversary, and E's birthday. This year, even though E was really too busy to think much about anything, he still managed to make me feel special and loved on my birthday.

He started off the day by making one of my favorite breakfasts - Belgian waffles, bacon and cheese eggs. He prepped the night before and did a beautiful job, everything came out delicious. I usually do all of the cooking in our family since I love to cook, but I could definitely get used to E making yummy things. We spent the day relaxing together and finished off the night with a phenomenal dinner at my favorite steak house, Mastro's. Mastro's is definitely our splurge restaurant, the steaks are so soft and buttery and the generous sides complement them perfectly.

Mastro's <3 br="" yum="">

To top off this birthday with a little glam, E got me the most gorgeous earrings that arrived a couple days after my birthday. They're sparkly diamond cluster studs with brilliant diamond sunburst jackets so I can wear the centers casually and the whole set for more classy events. I'm absolutely in love with them and he could not have done better.

And if I thought my birthday couldn't get any better, I had a fun and tasty dinner with a family friend at BJ's and  E and I had a third birthday dinner with my mother-in-law, step-father-in-law and another family friend.   Although I'm sure all this delicious food isn't helping my waistline, I could not feel more loved and appreciated by E and our families and friends.

E, I love you so much. Thank you for making my birthday so special. I can't wait to spend the next 74 with you.

Anniversary Celebrations

 While sitting at dinner for our anniversary, it occurred to E and I that we couldn't remember what we'd done for most some of our anniversaries.  Even when we could remember the "big" things we'd done, we couldn't remember which anniversaries we were celebrating. It's kind of awful, E even got me by asking what we did for our last anniversary and it took me a couple beats to figure it out....DUH, we got married!

5th Anniversary Promise Rings

So, after consulting facebook, photos, and various online journals, both dead and alive, we have determined the following:

2012 - 1st/10th - Mastros, and for our first wedding anniversary gift to each other, paper tickets to see Green Day's American Idol play.
2011 - 9th - We got Married! Yay!
2010 - 8th - Mastros? Probably?
2009 - 7th - The Smoke House? Maybe?
2008 - 6th - Picnic at the Beach! We had a fire pit and everything :)
2007 - 5th - Dinner at home with promise rings!
2006 - 4th - Apparently we had a big fight? Then probably went to the Smoke House.
2005 - 3rd - The Smoke House for dinner with Evan's family
2004 - 2nd - Evan came over for a bubble bath ;)
2003 - 1st - We went to the movies with friends :) And then had a sleep over, aww

I'm preserving this here because in a few more years who knows what we'll have forgotten. For the life of me I can't remember what we did in 2009, but an old journal post dated two weeks before indicated that we hadn't made plans yet. Whenever we couldn't figure what to do we usually went to the Smoke House so I think that's a safe bet.  It used to be our go to place until it kind of started to suck, and we got tired of driving out to Burbank.

I wonder what we'll do next year? Traditionally the second wedding anniversary is cotton so we'd better start planning now and we might be able to plan something memorable. Also, I would like to go back in time and punch my teenage self in the face. Text speak is quite possibly the most annoying thing on the planet.

25 Years

Although this is a little belated, I figured I'd post it anyway since I have so many unpublished entries in my blog graveyard. 

So this past February 5th was my 25th birthday. It's hard to believe that I've hit that quarter of a century milestone when I feel both so much older and so much younger. Twenty five? That's it? Most days I feel about 35, ready for a different stage in life. But then I think wow, twenty five, I'm already a quarter of the way (if I'm lucky) through my life. Only three more of these to go and I don't know if that will be enough. E and I are now closer to 30 than we are 20 and there's so much I want to accomplish before that next milestone rushes up and catches us unawares.

I woke up on my birthday and took care of my sweet Haji. It seems no matter what that cat did, how many shoes he peed in or nights he spent hours stubbornly scratching at basement door in the middle of the night, I could never be anything less than exasperated and amused with him. It hurts even more that losing him was so intimately tied with such an aging milestone, as if I have to embark on the next phase of life and I can't take him with me. After he died, my mom told me she thought his passing signaled the end of my childhood, although I think she was just trying to get in a dig about applying to medical school. I always thought that he too would make it to twenty five, even though in hindsight it was clear he wasn't doing well this past year. If I'd been asked though, I would have never said he'd be gone before his sixteenth birthday.  Missing him feels like not being able to catch my breath around the heaviness in my chest.

After Haji was settled comfortably in his heated bed (at least he had it good right up until the end), I met a friend from out of town for a wonderful and unexpected meal at one of my favorite breakfast places, The Griddle. We got delicious, and massive, cinnamon pancakes which I highly recommend you try with at least one-three other people to help you, and spent the morning catching up on the last few years.  Aside from my wedding, I hadn't seen her since high school and it was wonderful to see how we still clicked even though we're at different places in our lives.

Recess Time Pancakes

Unlike most of my birthdays where I planned every last detail myself, this birthday I left entirely up to E. Although he leaned a little heavily on his mom, he planned a lovely dinner in the Marina and we had an intimate dinner with family and friends. There was, of course, a few things that didn't go quite right. Overly generous C let me order our shared steak rarer than he would eat, there an unnecessary bout of squabbling over who was supposed to be contributing to the bill, but everything sorted itself out in the end. More importantly, I got spend time with E, my awesome friends and my favorite little person ever, Roxie, who took great pleasure in pointing out all the boats on the water and candles in the restaurant.

It was impossible to not have a wonderful birthday evening with such good company.